A power cut at Auckland City Hospital this week left some patients’ surgeries postponed after back-up generators failed to kick in.
An investigation is under way following the 23-minute power outage on Tuesday.
The power outage occurred while the hospital worked on improvements to its power systems as part of a planned programme of work.
“Unfortunately an error occurred,” Auckland’s Te Whatu Ora Health NZ director of operations Mike Shepherd told the Herald.
The power outage impacted some of the Auckland City Hospital buildings but an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) maintained power to its most critical services and pieces of equipment such as theatres and intensive care units.
“The UPS system worked as expected and maintained power to these critical services during Tuesday’s outage,” said Shepherd.
Shepherd confirmed no patients were harmed and everyone remained safe throughout the outage.
He said an investigation was under way into the circumstances of the outage.
“Our back-up generators weren’t able to contribute to the solution in this particular outage, so we’ll be looking into this further so that in future we can restore power to non-critical systems quicker.”
Hospital departments and equipment that aren’t covered by the UPS were impacted, including lighting.
“Power to these essential service supplies was restored within 10 minutes and our site was back operating on mains power within 23 minutes.
“Our hospital remained open and most scheduled patient appointments continued during the day. Some planned surgical procedures were postponed while we restored all power systems and we are sorry for this; we thank patients and whānau for their understanding,” Shepherd said.
Last February a one-hour power outage at Christchurch Hospital left some areas in total darkness, after back-up power generators failed.
When the blackout happened, 478 patients were in the hospital including 96 in the emergency department.
Te Whatu Ora - Waitaha Canterbury announced the outage had affected its power, IT and phone systems. Patients were asked to seek alternative care unless it was an emergency.
A media statement said staff had to go “back to basics” for patient observations, such as taking pulses manually and writing patient notes on paper.
Many senior staff also became “runners” between wards to convey information.
Benjamin Plummer is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He has worked for the Herald since 2022.
